Wednesday 25 April 2012

Polka dot fruit leathers

I saw a link to these on Pinterest, and had to try making my own! My children adore fruit leathers. I genuinely didn't expect them to be such a hit. I've made them from blackberries, raspberries, apples, pears and rhubarb, and they've always been wolfed down, and for bonus points they also keep for AGES. I bought my dehydrator mainly with this in mind, but it had never occured to me to mess about with patterns!

 
I started with 4 Bramley apples, cooked until soft, blitzed in the food processor, and sweetened with 2 dessertspoons on honey (they're a bit sticky, so I'd probably cut this down to 1-and-a-half in future). Also half a punnet of raspberries, heated until pulpy and shoved through the mouli to remove the pips. And finally a small can of peach slices, blitzed.


 Ta-dah! One tray of apple puree with raspberry and peach splodgey bits. I did try to pipe neat little dots but the puree was too thick for the nozzle and I got a bit impatient and gave up.


I dried it at 60C for about 9 hours. The result was pretty gorgeous! The leather was transfered to a piece of greaseproof paper, rolled into a sausage and then cut into sections (probably about 10).

The smallest madam likes to pretend that her fruit leathers are a funny tongue. every.single.time :)

I'm now wondering what else I can try! Zig zags? Stripes? Marbled? If my tomatoes grow well this year (they didn't last year) I may even try the savoury tomato and celery salt version.

Sunday 15 April 2012

Glamping

The girls and I have been having camping fun at the farm.

I'm not a natural camper, although I do enjoy the experience very much, but a large part of that is down to our lovely camping equipment. We have a 4m bell tent..







.. and I recently bought a Frontier Stove, which led to a very tense moment when a hole had to be cut in the tent for the flue!









       It was worth it though! The stove kept us warm long into the night, and was great for cooking on (and roasting marshmallows!), although due to beginner's user error and too-big logs, it also failed to stay alight for as long as I'd hoped, and we all came home stinking of wood smoke!


We roasted marshmallows on the first night, but then discovered that melty marshmallows and a long haired child with a baby wipe allergy DO NOT MIX. Whoops.












The campsite was based at Cotswold Farm Park, and it was fantastic. It was busier than I'd expected, considering the cold night time temperatures, but not at all crowded - the only noise at night was the sound of bleating lambs rather than other humans. The toilet blocks was sparkly new and everything seemed well thought out. And best of all, it's literally a 2 minute walk from the entrance to the farm park! The girls had an absolute blast.


They bounced on the bouncy pillow, cuddled baby chicks and ducklings, held rabbits and guinea pigs, bottle fed lambs, hand fed goats, played on the masses of play equipment, completed a wooden maze and won a little prize each, explored the woodland adventure area, rode on ride-on tractors, went on the tractor trailer ride around the park, saw some lambs being born, and lots more besides.






It was dry, other than a couple of well timed hailstorms on the first day (we stayed dry), and although it was chilly at times, it was bearable. Millie, who told me she didn't want to go camping at all, had such a great time that she didn't want to leave!

We'll definitely be regular visitors, I think. I'd been a bit concerned that the farm park might not offer enough entertainment, but it was great and I think the girls could have spent entire days on the bouncy pillow.

The Adam Henson branding was quite amusing, as until I watched Countryfile with my parents last week I had no idea who he was! There is Adam Henson branded everything, from sausages and Rare Breed bitter to pet bedding and souveniers. Good on him :)


I completely fell in love with the Lavender Pekin Bantams. They were *stunning*. Like little pompoms on feathered legs. They even have a slight purpley tinge to their pale feathers. I've looked into getting some but, although I could squeeze some into my Eglu, the other girls would almost certainly bully the minature newcomers and it may well end very badly. There's an option of starting a second flock (I would LOVE to and could probably find the space, but the cost is a different matter!). OR, I could focus my energies on finding some pastel coloured egg laying large fowl to keep Ginny, Hermione and Bellatrix company. I'd love to be greeted by a rainbow of eggs. Not that I'm managing to keep up with the 3-a-day that the Omlet girls seem to be producing, mind you! But that's not the point is it? :)


I love camping and can't wait to go again. I think our next trip might be to Camp Bestival, due to pesky things like school and work (oh, and a PROPER HOLIDAY with A PLANE) taking up our time between now and then!

Saturday 7 April 2012

Never enough time in the day..

I feel like this Easter is going to be a bit of a non event. I'm having all these wonderful ideas *now*, but it's too late to do anything about them. I'm going to hide little foil-wrapped Easter eggs around the garden for the children to find (weather and chicken poo levels permitting), and we're having a roast dinner. At some point the lovely Lucy and Coddy are hoping to come and see us before they head back Oop Norf. It will be a nice enough day.

But I'm having thoughts of hand stitched Easter bunnies, appliqued Easter baskets filled with treats, and non edible eggs to hide around the house and garden, perhaps with clues in. And then when the eggs have all been found they'll be awarded with the Easter basket. I don't think I could get away with not laying on an Easter egg hunt (where has this tradition come from?! I was always just happy with copious amounts of chocolate and had no desire to have to hunt through bushes and under flower pots to find them first!).

I'm having similar thoughts about camping. We go in 5 days. I've just about got my act together to order the wood burning stove, carbon monoxide detection strips, fire blankets and cheap self inflating mats for the girls, who are young and light and don't need a luxury Thermarest like mine. I haven't ordered any pretty things at all. I must become more organised.

Thursday 5 April 2012

Mother's Day

I can finally share the Mother's Day gift I made for my lovely mum:

It's a jar of hand stitched, strawberry scented fabric strawberries. They were pretty easy to make, using a template from Sew Pretty Homestyle, and some little squares of fabric from eBay which were the perfect size to make 2 strawberries from each. I still have 3 left to finish for the girls and me.

For my own mother's day present I got Sew Fabulous Fabric, which has some lovely things in it, in particular the applique. I just need more hours in the day..

On the rhubarb front, I'm currently drying some rhubarb leathers in the dehydrator. I'm not sure how they're going to turn out. The puree seems very watery, and needed all the honey I had in the house *and* some caster sugar in order to sweeten it sufficiently. And I'm still thinking it might be a bit too sour for my little princesses. Worth a try though.